


Joe and the Beanstalk

by rhythmandpearls



Category: Derkholm Series - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Coffee Shops, F/M, My First Fanfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 00:32:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17213771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhythmandpearls/pseuds/rhythmandpearls
Summary: Claudia, Elda, and Ruskin just wanted to open a coffeeshop at the Wizard's University -- anything to improve the quality of food available to students.  It should have been a quiet summer, but the enchanted espresso machine had other ideas.





	Joe and the Beanstalk

Welcome to Joe and the Beanstalk! Coffee, Pastries, and More!

Lattes and More Now At Joe and the Beanstalk!

Joe and the Beanstalk – Now Open Until 5pm

Hot and Iced Coffee. Try an Americano!

No Lattes Today – Half-price Cappuccino With Your Cookie!

NO Lattes, NO Cappuccinos. The Espresso Machine Will Only Produce Green Juice.

Ruskin had scribbled emphatic underlines under the first sentence of the latest sign. Claudia had helpfully affixed a post-it reading “Try Cafe au Lait!” You could hear Ruskin’s booming, vibrating, voice through the stark lettering. It was summer, so he wasn’t wearing his usual dwarf armor, and had had to be dissuaded from walking around shirtless by Wizard Finn.

“I’d love a green juice!” said Melissa, when she came in and read the sign. “Hey Claudia! It’s so great that you three started a campus coffeeshop. Just what we needed."

“It keeps us busy, since there are no summer classes,” Claudia agreed, with good cheer. She turned to the espresso machine and put a tall glass under a spout, saying clearly, “Green juice, please.” To Melissa, she added, “It’s meant to be enchanted, you know, and I suppose it is, but I’m wondering if we wouldn’t do better with a mechanical one.”

She held up the glass with a scowl. It was clear and bubbling. One of the machine’s spouts moved to follow the glass and squeezed out a perfectly fresh lime wedge, which fell into the glass sending up a stream of bubbles, rapidly followed by perfect square ice cubes. The outside of the glass rapidly grew dewy and it looked incredibly, unbeatably, refreshing. One almost expected it to conjure the porch swing as well. Claudia sniffed disapprovingly.

“Well, if I’m not mistaken, that’s a rather lovely gin and tonic,” she explained resignedly. “You’re welcome to it, but it isn’t exactly a green juice. I can fresh squeeze you some orange juice, or make a regular coffee.”

“I’ll take that g&t if you don’t want it, Melissa,” said Wizard Myrna, who had entered behind the younger woman. The professor was rather looking like she could use it while wrestling with her 7-month-old, who had just begun to crawl and possessed an alarming desire to dive-bomb onto any nearby surface (the counter, in this case). “ _No_ , Phoebe, Mommy needs her purse right now.”

Ruskin barreled out from the back room. He, Claudia, and Elda had claimed an unused classroom that opened on to the courtyard to house the Beanstalk.

“Is it failing again?” he roared.

“Well, not so as many people are likely to complain, no,” said Claudia hesitantly. Myrna claimed the g&t and sailed out to the courtyard, where the coffeeshop trio had cobbled together some small tables and chairs in a loose arrangement.

“But I do want a green juice,” put in Melissa, who’d been waiting with considerable patience, especially for a person who (through no fault of her own) usually experienced the world as catering to her every whim.

Ruskin turned toward the espresso machine, which they’d placed uncomfortably high for him, low for Claudia, and almost preposterously low for Elda. (A compromise they’d all professed themselves entirely fine with and had been silently stewing over, separately, all summer.) He knit his brows and held his hands near it, cocking his head. Claudia had been trying all summer to work on Flury’s assignment for her, which was following the threads of other people’s magic as they worked. She tended to follow and assist by intuition, and he wanted her to learn to do it consciously, so she had better control. Following Ruskin’s work was particularly difficult because he was using bits of magic from other dwarves, so the threads hardly looked as though they were all coming from him to begin with. She could tell that he was examining the machine mechanically, with a tinkerer’s mindset.

“Elda!” he called, releasing the espresso machine.

The yellow griffin stuck her eagle half out of the back room, licking a left claw. The mixing bowl hung from her right talon. They’d had to find mixing bowls with handles particularly for her.

“What do you think about lime scones?” she asked. Claudia considered.

“Oddly, given that I’m in favor of both orange and lemon scones, I’m finding it difficult to support lime ones,” she confessed.

“Elda!” trumpeted Ruskin again, beard looking very thick and fierce just then.

“Maybe just an iced coffee?” put in Melissa with fading hope. Claudia smiled distractedly at her.

“Where exactly did this...machine...come from?” asked Ruskin in furious tones. Elda, being easily six times his size and used to intimidating older brothers, did not quail.

“Oh, Mum’s aunt’s house – somewhere in the attic. That was the house she used to be the Enchantress, you remember, during the last tour.”

“Well, no, since we didn’t know each other then,” pointed out Claudia. Elda tended to act as if her friends were more siblings, who could be counted on to remember every incident in her early life.

“Oh, right. Not important, anyway. Apparently my great-aunt had never really used the espresso machine. I think they used it to make espresso for the Pilgrim Parties, though, and it worked fine then.”

Melissa, at this long history, flounced out, letting the door bang behind her.

“Oh dear, I’d better go after her,” said Claudia. “If she hates us all the bards and half the wizards will boycott in support.”

“Here, take her one of the flaky cheese triangles, she loves them and they’re hot right now,” said Elda, pushing a greasy paper bag on Claudia as the latter poured an iced coffee and chased the tall blonde.

“Elda –” began Ruskin, gesturing at the espresso machine, when Blade entered the shop.

“Blade!” squawked Elda, launching herself over the counter at her older brother. Ruskin, veteran of many a mine tunnel, nodded approvingly at the human wizard’s choice of stabilizing spells.

“Yes, hello, Elda,” came his voice, muffled by griffin wings. “Nice to see you too. I am here almost every day, so I don’t necessarily need to be smothered. Can I have a coffee? Where’s Claudia?”

“Oh, right,” said Elda breathlessly, disentangling herself from him. “She just went to placate Melissa.”

Blade craned around around to see if he could glimpse the pair in the courtyard. “I’ll wait for her, then,” he offered. “Do you think I could borrow her for an hour when she gets back?”

Ruskin frowned. “It’s about to be our afternoon rush,” he rumbled.

“Oh, well, maybe I can just have a coffee here, then,” Blade suggested. For the fifth most powerful wizard in the world, he was terribly uncertain about how to handle things with Claudia. Having his little sister and a much-older dwarf watching didn’t exactly help matters.

Elda turned her head to regard him closely with one large eye. “We close at 5. Policant wouldn’t let us compete with the cafeteria for dinner. He said if we want to do that we need to move into the village. Snacks only.”

“That’s because he knows we’d beat the trousers off the cafeteria given half a chance,” whisper-buzzed Ruskin, with some pride.

“It’s not as bad as it was,” explained Elda. “But I did get some godlike snack recipes from Lydda which are much better, it’s true. And Ruskin’s got his cooking spells mostly working now.”

“Well, I’m glad you’ve seen Lydda, at any rate. It’s hard to keep track of everyone now that we’re scattered across continents. I did find Calette, though, and she sent a present for you.”

Blade rummaged about in one of his pockets, which seemed to grow quite improbably, until nearly his entire upper body disappeared into it. “Neat trick,” Ruskin buzzed. Blade, emerging, said, “Yes, well, beats carrying a backpack. Here you are, Elda.”

He handed her a handsome chrome teapot with wood detailing. It was very much Calette’s taste, not Elda’s.

“She says it’s an experiment,” Blade offered. “Should keep tea hot without over-steeping it.”

“I’ll have to send her a note saying how it does, then,” Elda answered distractedly, examining the teapot in her talons.

“May I, Elda?” Ruskin asked. He subjected the teapot to a searching mechanical and magical overview.

“This is very clever,” he offered at last. “No magic at all. Less to go wrong!” (This last with a baleful look at the espresso machine.) He was about to carry on his investigation of that malfunctioning equipment when Claudia re-entered, looking extra green.

“I think I’ve talked her round, she really does like those cheese triangles, Elda, and she said she’d come by tomorrow again to see if we could produce a green juice or some kind of smoothie then –” all this as she re-tied her apron and tucked back her questing, curling, hair. “Did you manage a green juice – oh! Hello, Blade.”

She looked so bowled over, and Blade so shy, that Elda vaulted back over the counter and snagged Ruskin by the back of his jerkin, saying something about how the next round of pastries would be burning. Claudia was not entirely pleased by this desertion. She hadn’t had much time alone with Blade since she’d met him the previous fall and they’d all gone to Mars (thanks to her travel jinx, which he then helped cure). He’d offered to help her learn to use her newly discovered translocation gift, but with classes, the Beanstalk, and his various responsibilities, they hadn’t had time yet. He came into the Beanstalk quite frequently for breaks from his research efforts in the university library, but she was always busy, or Ruskin or Elda was there, or someone else wanted to talk to the famous Wizard Blade, and somehow they hadn’t spoken much. Claudia knew that he’d asked her older brother Titus (the Emperor) for permission to court her, but she wasn’t quite sure if he’d been serious about it, or what that meant, and nothing much had come of it so far.

“Claudia, hello,” he said, nervously carding his hair. “Sorry it’s been so long since I was here, some things came up, and – ”

“Oh, no, it’s fine, I’ve been busy expanding the cafe, and –”

“It looks great, by the way!”

“Well, mostly Elda making pastries and Ruskin constructing the space and using his cooking spells –”

“And you holding the whole thing together, that’s clear enough,” he said, smiling down at her. Claudia’s hair was questing toward him, just the ends squirming and searching, and she hastily tucked it behind her ears.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, uncertainly.

“Look, Claudia, I was wondering –” Blade began, but the door opened with a jingle and in came students for the promised afternoon rush. Claudia ducked behind the counter and Blade attempted to do an impression of a wall, though the students spotted him and whispered excitedly anyway. By the time the rush passed, so had Blade’s courage, so he simply went to the cafeteria with the three of them for dinner and consoled himself with the fact that he’d been able to be in the same room as Claudia for hours without making a fool of himself.

The next morning when Claudia arrived, drowsily, ten minutes before opening, she found Elda contriving to take up nearly the entire space by hopping about with wings spread.

“Where is it coming from?” she was screeching to Ruskin, who had prudently climbed up on the counter and was sitting there cross-legged.

“Hello, Claudia,” he said. “Probably the espresso machine, Elda. I knew it was a bad business.”

“Elda!” Claudia called, seeing her friend really was distressed. “What’s going on?”

“Look at it!” Elda wailed. She at least did flap back away from the counter so Claudia could see. The offending espresso machine was indeed dripping a bright blue viscous liquid that, if Claudia focused on it, gave off a kind of tang.

“What does it smell like?” she asked.

“It’s not a smell, it’s in your mind, it’s like bleach, it’s just like when Dad summoned the blue demon and it went through me!” Elda was really very close to tears now.

“All right,” Claudia said, wishing fervently for a functional espresso machine so she could have some caffeine before taking on all of this. “Elda, let’s go outside. Ruskin, do you think you can handle cleaning up in here?”

“Not as bad as mine tailings,” he rumbled agreeably.

“Thank you,” said Claudia, taking Elda gently by a talon and leading her out to the courtyard.

“Ok, shh,” she said to the griffin, who was taking off in short bursts, sending great gusts of wind around her wings like the wake of a boat at speed. “What happened with the demon? Can you come down and talk to me, please?"

Elda settled on the ground, feathers fluffed and crest half up, and took a deep breath.

“When Dad was Dark Lord, I was really little, still the baby. He went off to summon a demon, I don’t know why, but I followed him because I was scared he was going to get hurt. He didn’t get the demon he meant to – he got the king of all the demons by accident. It turned out that Tripos – that’s the demon king – wasn’t so bad in the end, but the feeling of him going through me, it – the feeling of the blue stuff in there is much fainter, but it reminded me of it so much.”

Claudia was quiet. “I wonder if you’re extra sensitive to demonic activity because you ran into him when you were so small, Elda.”

The griffin’s feathers were smoothing out and Claudia came closer to stroke her friend’s shoulder.

“That could be. But why would there be demonic activity in the Beanstalk?”

“Do you think we can ask your mom about the espresso machine?”

“Yes. I’ll write to her. And I’d better write a new sign, that there are no espresso drinks available – I won’t trust anything that thing puts out now.”

Elda flew off back to her concert hall for pen and paper, leaving Claudia to square her shoulders and re-enter the Beanstalk. She found the floor and counter clear of the blue substance and Ruskin experimenting with the machine.

“No matter what I do all it will give me now is this brown fizzy stuff,” he grumbled. He held up a glass with a highly carbonated dark brown drink in it, ice clinking within.

“Did you try it?”

“Very sweet and fizzy, with odd spicing. Couldn’t get a grip on it. Feels caffeinated though. Not bad at all, if you want to try.”

Claudia took a sip and found she quite liked it.

“I probably shouldn’t have much,” she said regretfully. “Elda is going to write to her mum about the machine and said we probably shouldn’t use it in the meantime. Evidently there’s a demonic flavor to it.”

Ruskin shuddered. “Don’t like the sound of that. Well, let me go check my strawberry cream puffs.”

He hopped off the counter, adjusting his beige apron around his enormous chest. Claudia flipped the sign on the door to OPEN, and took up her station at the counter.

 

NO Espresso Drinks, Due to Suspicion of Demonic Activity.*  
(* Know a good source for enchanted espresso machines? Inquire at the counter!)

NO Espresso Drinks, Exorcism Scheduled. Enjoy the Muffin of the Week – Lime Custard!

After a week of the espresso machine outputting gin and tonics, green juices, one heavenly strawberry banana smoothie, which Claudia and Elda shared, one pint of Ruskin’s favorite ale, some perfect cappuccinos and a lot of lemonade, Ruskin decided to stay after closing one day and take it apart. Claudia elected to stay and help. Elda had been invited to her younger sister Flo’s tea party and had to miss the investigation, though she looked wistful as she waved goodbye and took off for Derkholm.

“All right, Claudia,” Ruskin said, busily unscrewing the lid of the machine. “We’ll get a better look once this is out of the way.”

They lifted it off and set it aside, only to look in and see – another box. The various tubes from the outside of the machine ran down to this box, which was welded shut and firmly stuck to the bottom of the machine.

“Well, I like that,” grumbled Ruskin. “All it needs is to be painted black and it’s a regular eff you to us, isn’t it?”

“I mean, we knew it was a magical machine. I didn’t think there’d be gears.”

“Look at it magically, though. There’s no break there, either.”

Claudia looked with her magesight as Flury had taught them. The inner box shimmered, but Ruskin was right that she couldn’t see any edges to the magic. Nowhere could she follow one thread.

“Anything in the Red Book about this?” she asked him, only half serious.

“I will certainly find out!”

 

> Dear Elda, [Mara’s letter began]  
>  I never had any trouble with that espresso machine, but it does seem to be behaving oddly. I have some free time on Friday to come to the university to take a look, but I’ll have to bring Flo and Angelo, just so you know. Is there somewhere they can stay out of trouble while we work?  
>  Love,  
>  Mum  
>  P.S. I shouldn’t worry overmuch about the demon brain-scald. I think Claudia’s right, you were sensitized at an early age (and I still rage at Querida for causing me not to be there!), so what you sensed is likely faint traces of a demon long-gone or else a very weak demon indeed. I expect you’ve studied how to dismiss them. It may be a good idea to review that so it’s fresh in your mind.

Elda rolled her eyes at the parchment, with affection. Mara wasn’t as reassuring as she thought she was.

Cold Press Coffee Now Available at the Beanstalk!

Today’s Special: Lemon Meringue Pie

Blade came by again mid-week, this time a few minutes before the Beanstalk closed. Claudia had gone to find more cups in the storage closet, and came out to find him standing there, lean and black-clad, idly toying with the clean spoons on the counter with the milk and sugar. He was trying to grow a real beard now, or at least hadn’t shaved, and had a few days of stubble on his cheeks. It didn’t particularly become him (even at 25, coverage was patchy), but she found herself smiling fondly at it anyway. Her hair felt unusually alive, as it always did around Blade.

“Hello. We’re closing in a few minutes.”

“I know. I thought I might be able to tempt you away after you responsibilities here are fulfilled,” he said, in a mock-serious tone.

“Well, if you help me stack the chairs and put the tables away my responsibilities will be complete quicker.”

The chairs rose wobbling into the air. Blade squinted hard at them and they arranged themselves as desired.

“Er, not to show off, or anything, just trying to help,” he confessed, suddenly unsure if he was being a jerk.

“It’ll take more than picking up some chairs to impress me,” she said sternly, holding out a broom to him. Ruskin and Elda had left a few minutes earlier, since they generally opened the cafe while Claudia closed, in deference to how very much she was _not_ a morning person. Now, though, looking at Blade in the afternoon light, she felt she could get up as early as anyone asked.

"It'll do like this," she said, rushing through final tasks.

"Translocation lesson?" he asked, holding out his hand to her, ready to leap.

***

Mara arrived in the courtyard alone a few days later. Derk had been able to take Angelo and Flo that afternoon after all, though both young children had screamed about needing mommy.

“Mum!” Elda called, pouncing over the counter to envelop the newcomer in her wings.

“Hi, yes, Elda, I came as soon as I could.”

She suffered herself to be buffeted with griffin wings, tutted about Elda’s bedraggled tail tuft, and eyed her ribs critically.

“Well, it looks like you’re getting enough to eat, at least, Elda. Have you been hunting?”

“Not really,” the griffin mumbled, shuffling her lion feet.

“You know you should. Best way to get the nutrients you need is fresh meat. And it’ll keep your flying muscles in shape like nothing else.”

“Yes, mum.”

“Good. Now, what is the story with my poor aunt’s espresso machine? I’m sure she’s rolling in her grave about what I’ve done to her various possessions.”

Ruskin and Elda both started to explain at high volume, which Mara bore only briefly before putting up her hand and turning to Claudia. This last was feeling incredibly intimidated by Blade’s mother, a very powerful wizard in her own right, and the only person Claudia had ever seen successfully stop Ruskin on a tear.

“Well,” she began. “For the first few weeks we had it – and thank you so much for lending it to us – it worked normally. We told it what kind of drink we wanted, a cappuccino or what have you, and it produced it. We kept it well stocked with coffee beans and milk, as you’d imagine, and it took care of the grinding and steaming and things.”

“As it should,” Mara agreed. Elda’s tail was whipping and Ruskin’s beard quivering with the effort of not jumping in with more explanations.

“Then it started getting – funny. An espresso or cortado would be fine, anything short, but a cappuccino was iffy and a latte was almost certainly out. Those started getting odd – carrot juice, beet juice, smoothies, things like that. Even though we’d only ever give it coffee and milk, so where were those ingredients coming from? I wouldn’t expect it to be able to conjure them up."

“Right,” Mara confirmed.

“We kept updating the sign, until finally we told people we couldn’t do espresso drinks at all. It went completely haywire last week, when what you asked for would have no bearing on what it made. Elda felt something demonic one morning, so we just thought ultimately that we’d better not use it and ask for help.”

“Right you are,” said Mara. “Now. All join hands or claws. Let’s have a look.”

Scrying with Mara in the lead was quite different than with Flury or any of their other professors. Each of the students could see the consequence (or perhaps cause) of Mara working with universes. She could see, and was showing them, how everything in their universe was bound together, and the inescapable oneness of it all. They all felt, suddenly, the nearness of all the other universes, hearts beating next to theirs, a thought away. Each of them felt the temptation to open new portals, to see what was going on in these neighbor worlds. But Mara kept the circle focused on the espresso machine. She drew them close to it ,and they all saw, suddenly, that there was a strange ripple in it. It was of this universe, but with a twist.

“It’s connected,” Mara said. “To Mr. Chesney’s world. Did it give you any drinks you didn’t recognize?”

“Yes,” said Claudia. “Some brown fizzy stuff.”

“That must be something they have there. But why is it connected? I’m sure it wasn’t when we found it in the attic, Elda. I would have noticed that.”

Mara took them closer, into the magic of the espresso machine itself, until they suddenly felt and saw rainbow pulses of scalding energy and she pulled them back out and released the scrying circle.

“A demon,” she said brightly. You were right, Elda. A demon is in there and has decided to open a portal to Mr. Chesney’s world to bring back exotic beverages. Fascinating. Let’s find out why, shall we?”

“There’s a demon in there?” Elda screeched, releasing the circle now that it was safe to do so and backpedaling away from the machine as fast as her mismatched legs could take her.

“It used to be fairly common,” Mara continued. Wizards would trap minor demons in artifacts with specific instructions. Putting one in an espresso machine feels like overkill, but who knows what the original thinking was. It may have other properties we’re not aware of. It’s not as though my aunt left an instruction manual.”

“So...what should we do?” asked Claudia.

“We’ll have to ask the demon why it opened the portal,” Mara said briskly. “And have it close it again. This might be a little tricky since the demon is already bound. We’ll need to encase it in another pentacle, release it from the espresso machine, and re-bind it to answer fully and truly.”

“Let’s just put it back in aunt’s attic and not talk to it,” said Elda, still looking jumpy. Before Mara could respond, Ruskin clacked the bones in his beard emphatically and said, “I hate demons as much as the next dwarf, Elda, but I and my people know what it is to labor without thanks or pay or recognition. I do not think we could call ourselves wizards if we continued to enslave this demon to provide us with beverages. And how much worse to cause it to be imprisoned and forgotten in an attic! No, we must do as your mother says and speak to the creature, then release it.”

Claudia had never seen Elda look so small and ashamed.

“You’re absolutely right Ruskin,” the griffin said. “I’m sorry I ever thought anything else.”

Ruskin looked uncomfortable, and Claudia felt extreme mortification herself. She hadn’t been thinking of the demon as a person, and the idea that she’d been ordering someone around with never a thought to their well-being was sobering. At home in the Empire that sort of thing happened (Titus had a lot of servants) but at least the people were paid and had time off and all that sort of thing. Even then, Claudia felt odd about it – servants weren’t done among the Marsh people. The demon, though, had not even had the rights and privileges of a servant. It had to sit in that metal box alone, doing nothing but producing drinks on demand.

“All right,” Mara broke in. “Well put, Ruskin. I agree that we should let the demon go when we get to the bottom of what’s going on. I do not want any of you to forget that this demon, while likely rather minor, as demons go, is still dangerous. Elda, you know this from the farm and I imagine you’ve also run into creatures like this, Ruskin and Claudia. When a person or animal is weak and trapped is when they are the most vicious. There will be no carelessness or joking around. The demon has no reason to think well of us, and remember that demons have their own sense of justice and fairness anyway. Until we release it completely, we are in danger.”

The three students all nodded soberly.

“Excellent. Now. Any ideas about how to learn the demon’s name? Elda, did you dig up those grimoires I mentioned in my letter? Ruskin, would you go get some chalk and candles, please?”

Claudia was thinking of leaving with Ruskin when Mara turned to her and asked pleasantly, “Would you make me one of those cafe au lait’s you mentioned, Claudia?”

Trapped. The older woman was all innocence, but Claudia was sure this was the moment Mara asked about her and Blade. And what on earth was there to say?

“Have you chosen a specific area of focus for your studies?” Mara asked while Claudia scalded the milk.

“Not yet. I have a translocation talent, so I’ve been practicing that. Otherwise I find it all interesting. I suppose I like magical theory, and combining things that aren’t usually thought to go together.”

“Like eagle and lion, or human and Marsh person?” Mara suggested. Claudia nodded briefly. Ruskin and Elda both returned then with their materials for questioning the demon, and all four ended up having coffees, and planning how to manage the exorcism of the espresso machine. Claudia wondered, in the back of her mind, if there was more that Mara had been intending to say to her. Perhaps his mother’s interest meant that Blade was interested. Or perhaps she was reading into things too much and Mara was just being polite.

CLOSED for Exorcism  
Reopening when possible! Free cookies for reopening!

The group set the espresso machine in the middle of the hardwood floor and drew three concentric pentacles around it in chalk, setting a candle outside each point of the outermost pentacle. Mara tapped her lip.

“It’s a pity we’re only four – I’d like to have one of us for each point.”

“Blade is usually around doing research,” Elda pointed out, and fit word to action by flying off to hunt him down. Before Claudia could think too much about this, Elda had reappeared with Blade close behind.

“Found him!” Elda crowed happily.

“Excellent,” said Mara.

“Hi Mum,” said Blade, straightening his robes in what Claudia felt sure was an unconscious gesture. She hastily stopped herself from smiling goofily when he glanced over at her, and instead gave him her best professional nod.

“All right. Now that we’re all here –”

Blade raised his eyes to heaven slightly at this intimation that he was late, then winked at Claudia.

“-- we can begin,” Mara continued, with a quelling look at her son. “What we’ll do is join hands and claws again, do some diagnostics on the binding within the espresso machine to find the demon’s properties and name if we can, apply those to our pentacle, and break the inner binding. Be ready for the demon to test our pentacle once it’s released from the inner binding, and hold your point firm. Share power as needed.”

They all nodded and bent to light their candles at Mara’s direction,with a minimum of Elda bumping into Ruskin and the latter grumbling and Blade lighting his candle casually, magically, just by looking at it. (Claudia could light things magically, but she needed to be touching them. Ruskin felt that flight and steel were good enough, or so he said.)

“All right,” said Mara once they were ready and joined in a circle. “I’ll lead the questioning once we have the demon in our outer pentacle. Don’t let it distract you. Even a minor demon can be very tricky. Hold your point firm.”

Mara was as good as her word. She took them through the diagnostics, final tweaks to their outer binding, and release of the inner binding with sure, careful, steps. When the demon emerged from the espresso machine it was as a multicolored fog which gave off the same feeling they had encountered earlier, a feeling like the smell of bleach or sound of nails on a chalkboard, or the sensation of biting a metal fork. It surged toward Elda, and Claudia focused on staying calm and firm, sending power through Mara to Elda, and through Ruskin to Blade to Elda. She could feel Mara and Blade supporting the griffin, and each point of the pentacle held firm.

“Demon!” said Mara clearly. “We bind you here only to answer questions. Answer truly and completely and we will release you. Lie, and I will know. The sooner you answer, the sooner you will be released.”

The fog coalesced a bit, then turned into a rainbow-furred rabbit.

“If all you want is a chat then there’s no need for the pentacle, is there?” the rabbit asked, calmly, in a voice that could’ve been male or female.

“I have no interest in leaving you free within the wards of the University,” Mara said. “Even unintentionally, you could well harm something or someone.”

The rabbit yawned and stretched. It was adorable. Claudia felt faintly that perhaps Mara was being too hard on the demon. Suddenly it lunged at her point of the pentacle, snapping its suddenly-long-and-sharp teeth (and how had its mouth grown so large?), and she needed the quick rush of support from first Mara and then Ruskin to hold firm.

“You prove my point,” said Mara, drily. “Now, what should I call you? I’d rather not say ‘demon’ over and over.”

The rabbit sat back on its haunches in the middle of the pentacle as if it had never lunged.

“You can call me Dian,” she said, subtly shifting her voice and appearance to become more feminine.

“Thank you. Now, Dian, what was your charge in the espresso machine?”

“To provide the drinker’s desired beverage. It wasn’t just an espresso machine, you know.”

She gave Ruskin a particularly baleful look at that. “I could find and provide anything.”

“So they’ve noticed. So what happened in the past few weeks? Why did you open a portal to another world?”

“This one –” and here the rabbit pointed its nose at Blade, twitching a bit, “came in full of desire for an offworld drink. That’s not what he said to the green lady” (this to Claudia) “but that’s what he was thinking of. Coke they call it over there.”

Everyone gaped at an extremely awkward-looking Blade.

“Why did you leave the portal open?” Mara asked, before Dian had a chance to leap away. At that, the rabbit looked as shifty as a rabbit could look – one forepaw up, head down and to the side, nose twitching madly, hair raised along her spine. She didn’t respond.

“Well?”

Claudia could feel Mara raising the magical pressure of the pentacle, and carefully did her part to make sure her point stayed even with the others.

“We do not take portals to other worlds lightly here, Dian,” Mara said, low and insistent. “Why did you leave it open?”

The rabbit had crouched down on herself under the pressure of the pentacle. She coughed.

“I didn’t have the strength to close it. That’s why I dripped one day. I couldn’t control the inflow anymore.”

Mara nodded, and brought the pentacle’s field back to its original strength.

“Very well. I charge you to go forth from here, bringing harm to no one, directly or indirectly. Do not approach within 10 miles of the University or you will be imprisoned once more within the espresso machine. Cease your workings here, and go freely."

Mara extinguished her candle, the rabbit turned back into fog, and Dian scudded away faster than Claudia would have thought possible.

“Now,” said Mara. “To close this portal. Blade, perhaps you’d like to do the honors? Evidently you’re in practice. We will be discussing how you became familiar with this offworld beverage."

Blade grimaced and gestured, and Claudia saw the magical ripple in the espresso machine disappear. Everything that remained was of their own world.

“Now, Mum,” said Blade. “It was for research purposes only-- ”

“You of all people should know the dangers of journeying to other worlds!” Mara yelled.

“Yes, but we can learn! We can’t be afraid to try forever!”

“You could’ve been trapped there!”

“No, Kit and I had a plan, all right, and besides I’m fine!”

“Oh is this Kit’s doing, now? I’ll have it out with both of you, and your father!”

She turned to the students and said calmly, “Let me know if you have any other trouble, you three. Sorry the espresso machine won’t work anymore. I’ll come and have some coffee and pastries soon, Elda. Give me a hug before I go.”

After bidding her daughter farewell, Mara rounded on Blade, who had been attempting to slink behind Claudia. “And you! If you were a little younger I’d grab your ear! Come with me to Derkholm."

She stalked out. The fifth-most-powerful wizard in the world shrugged ruefully and followed her out, touching Claudia’s arm as he passed and saying, “I’m sorry about the espresso machine. I’ll see you soon.”

 

Exorcism Complete

Special of the Day: Lime Scones!

Wanted: Espresso machine, gently used and not possessed. Inquire at the counter!


End file.
